sasirin pamai
With evidence of a tight U.S. labor market in recent years, the Federal Reserve’s long-term estimate for the U.S. jobless rate has dropped, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic pointed out on Monday.
In 2017, full unemployment — one of two parts of the Fed’s monetary policy mandate — was thought to be consistent with an unemployment rate of roughly 4.25%, though “that’s changed,” Bostic said in a prepared speech at a virtual labor market conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and some regional Fed banks.
Excluding the pandemic recession, unemployment has trailed 4.5% for nearly seven years, “and in many months by a significant amount,” he said.
“My colleagues have acknowledged this shift,” Bostic said, noting the median long-term expectation among Federal Open Market Committee members for unemployment is now about 4.1%.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate for January came in at 3.7%, unchanged from the prior month.
Bostic also highlighted a handful of structural shifts in the post-pandemic labor market, one being an increase in remote work.
“It appears that the amenity benefits of the shift to work-from-home could be unevenly distributed across industries, occupations, locations, and demographic groups,” he said.
Bostic did not discuss his interest-rate outlook in his prepared remarks.